Punjab minister resigns after warehousing official, who alleged harassment, dies by suicide

Opposition parties in Punjab on Sunday (March 22, 2026) mounted pressure on the ruling Aam Aadmi Party for the arrest of its senior leader Laljit Singh Bhullar, who stepped down as a Minister from the Cabinet after his name surfaced in connection with the death of a State warehousing corporation official who died by suicide.

Gagandeep Singh Randhawa, district manager of the Punjab Warehousing Corporation in Amritsar, allegedly died by suicide early on Saturday after consuming what appeared to be a poisonous substance, as seen in a purported video linked to the incident. In the video, Mr. Randhawa had accused Mr. Bhullar of harassing him by pressuring him to award a tender to the Minister’s aide.

Demanding the immediate arrest of the Minister, the family of the deceased said they would not perform the last rites or permit the post-mortem until the accused is arrested. “We want justice,” Upinder Kaur, the wife of the deceased, said in Amritsar while speaking to media persons. She said that her husband was humiliated, assaulted and forced to admit that he had accepted a ₹10 lakh bribe when he was summoned to the Minister’s residence in Patti. “This happened on March 13. Unable to bear the torment, my husband took his own life,” she alleged.